Posts about Mideast

I complained a few days ago that the only narrative I’ve been seeing of the Gaza pullout story, especially on TV, was of wailing settlers, making it look as if all Israel was protesting this move.

NPR, to its credit, is rounding out the narrative. Last night, All Things Considered presented reports that showed support and perspective in Israel. And this morning, I heard a good report on On The Media summing up media reaction in Israel and in the Arab world with, again, much more perspective.

Reading and especially watching TV coverage of two stories today stuck me how mainstream media is stuck in two eeyore narratives:

On the Iraqi constitution, a week’s delay is seen as a defeat. But, of course, we should compare that with our own heritage: 16 months to negotiate articles of confederation that were a disaster; 13 years from the Declaration of Independence before we ended up with a constitution and a government. And we had an advantage: We weren’t murdering each other.

On the Gaza pullout, the narrative is about the fight from the settlers. But the bigger story is the process for peace: Israel took a step forward and so now, what about you, Palestinians?

Kit Seelye reports on a rather curious meeting of newspapers editors asking the Associated Press whether they — and thus we — are getting the full story in Iraq: that is, not just the bombing but also the building.

Some editors expressed concern that a kind of bunker mentality was preventing reporters in Iraq from getting out and explaining the bigger picture beyond the daily death tolls.

“The bottom-line question was, people wanted to know if we’re making progress in Iraq,” Ms. Goudreau said, and the A.P. articles were not helping to answer that question.

“It was uncomfortable questioning The A.P., knowing that Iraq is such a dangerous place,” she said. “But there’s a perception that we’re not telling the whole story.”

Mr. Silverman said in an interview that he was aware of that perception. “Other editors said they get calls from readers who are hearing stories from returning troops of the good things they have accomplished while there, and readers find that at odds with the generally gloomy portrayal in the papers of what’s going on in Iraq,” he said.

Well, it’s good they’re asking … a bit late in the party of public perception, but at least they’re asking. I also would have been curious to hear the same questions asked of papers, including The Times, that have their reporters in Iraq. [insert full disclosure here]

One thing they can do is turn soldiers and bloggers there into contributors. No, they’re not journalists. Yes, they have a viewpoint (what human doesn’t). But they have eyes and ears where the American news organizations do not.

Juan Cole knows no shame. He blames murdered journalist Steven Vincent for his own murder in Iraq.

He was romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter, who was shot 4 times. If her clan thought she was shaming them by appearing to be having an affair outside wedlock with an American male, they might well have decided to end it. In Mediterranean culture, a man’s honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men…. Vincent did not know anything serious about Middle Eastern culture and was aggressive about criticizing what he could see of it on the surface, and if he was behaving in the way the Telegraph article describes, he was acting in an extremely dangerous manner.

Well, how about his murderers didn’t know anything serious about civilized culture and they were behaving in a way that should bring your condemnation?

Martin Kramer does a wonderful job of cutting the professor down to size and also reveals that the stick up Cole’s rear could well go back to Vincent’s audacity to criticize Cole for the same reason I have criticized him. Vincent said on his blog before his death:

You might want to review your own site and how well it reflects love and concern for the Iraqi people. After all, on “Informed Comment,” pro-liberation Iraqi bloggers are accused of being CIA agents, the elections are practically dismissed as window-dressing and every terrorist–no, I mean guerrilla, as Cole would have it–attack is given marquis billing, as if their psychopathic bloodlust discredits the liberation of 26 million people. Whoops, I mean 23.5 million–because according to Cole’s Wednesday post, 2.5 million Iraqis support the “resistance.”

Well, I thank Cole for revealing his gut-level concern for the Iraqi people… My question to the Professor is, which Iraqi people–the fascist thugs he calls the “resistance,” or the police, National Guardsmen, politicians, everyday people and eight million voters who comprise the true Iraqi “resistance”? We await his Informed Comment.

The portly, goateed Fahd inadvertently helped fuel the rise of Islamic extremism by making concessions to hard-liners in an effort to boost his Islamic credentials. But he also brought the kingdom closer to the United States and agreed to a step that enraged many conservatives: basing U.S. troops on Saudi soil after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

What an odd bit of writing that is: First, how do we know he “inadvertently” helped fuel the rise of Islamic extremism? Second, what an odd segue from People-magazinish adjectives — “portly, goateed” — into the tipping point for the clash of civilizations.

Gunmen ambushed the top Bahraini and Pakistani diplomats in separate attacks as they drove through the capital today, spurring Pakistan to announce the withdrawal of its ambassador from Iraq.

The Bahraini diplomat, Hassan Malallah al-Ansari, was struck in the right arm by a bullet and taken to a hospital. The Pakistani ambassador, Muhammad Yunis Khan, escaped unharmed, though a car in his convoy was raked by bullets. The ambushes came three days after the top Egyptian diplomat here was kidnapped as he drove alone through western Baghdad. Insurgents appear to have begun an organized campaign to drive Muslim diplomats out of Iraq as the American and Iraqi governments are pressing Arab countries to send ambassadors here and upgrade their diplomatic ties.

You’d think, you’d hope that the proper response among Arab brethren would be to denouce the attacks with defiance and vow to stay. You’d think.

The Arabic world has now gotten a taste of al-Qaeda diplomacy over the past week, as Iraq-AQ ringleader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has changed tactics. Instead of just blowing up Iraqis in an attempt to demoralize the populace — a strategy that clearly has backfired — he has now turned his guns and bombs on diplomats posted to Iraq from neighboring Middle East countries….

It’s difficult to devise a dumber strategy than this, and it reeks of desperation. Some of these countries have significant sympathy in their population for AQ’s goals in the region. However, these attacks not only risk alienating their less-lunatic enables in the Middle East, they threaten to turn Arabic governments from positions of benign neglect to active and deadly opposition to AQ and its supporters. No government will blithely allow its envoys to become targets for Islamists, no matter how sympathetic they might be.

Zarqawi must know this — he’s crazy, but so far we’ve seen no evidence that he’s stupid. To go out of his way to antagonize countries like Egypt and Bahrain, he must realize that all other options have run their course and have failed. He risks accomplishing what George Bush has tried for years: uniting Arabs in the Middle East to fight terrorism and to support democracy, specifically in Iraq.